With Drake’s Playlist Looming, Ed Sheeran’s ‘Divide’ Is No. 1, for Now

The British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, performing in Zurich on Sunday.

Ennio Leanza / European Pressphoto Agency

By BEN SISARIO

March 20, 2017

Ed Sheeran, the streaming star of the moment, holds the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart for a second time this week. But fortunes can change quickly in the streaming age, and Drake is poised to take over next week with a just-released playlist.

Mr. Sheeran’s “÷” (known as “divide”) sold 87,000 copies and had 109 million streams in the United States last week, according to data from Nielsen. The album, released by Atlantic, is credited with 180,000 “album equivalent units,” which incorporates both sales and streams — that is down 60 percent from the total in its first week, but it was more than enough to keep “÷” at No. 1.

Metallica’s four-month-old “Hardwired … to Self-Destruct” (Blackened) holds at No. 2 for a second week, thanks once again to an offer that bundled the album with concert tickets. Also this week, Disney has two soundtracks in the top 5: “Beauty and the Beast” opens at No. 3, and “Moana” rises three spots to No. 5. And Bruno Mars’s “24K Magic” (Atlantic) is in fourth place.

Drake’s “More Life,” anticipated by fans since the fall, was released on streaming services on Saturday, and it instantly became a contender for next week’s No. 1. Songs from the playlist — Drake has specified that the project isn’t an album or a mixtape — took over 21 of the top 22 slots on Spotify’s rolling “United States Top 50” chart, and Twitter announced on Monday that 2.5 million tweets had been sent about the release in its first 36 hours.